Network Your Way to Reinvention

Former Queen of Wall Street Sallie Krawcheck shares her three best networking tips

by Margy Rochlin

Photograph: Tony Cenicola/New York Times/Redux

Once known as the Queen of Wall Street, Sallie Krawcheck became famous for rescuing financial institutions on the brink. She lost two jobs—and engineered big comebacks. But of all her jobs, the first is the only one she landed in a traditional way. “It’s essentially through my network that opportunities came to me,” says Krawcheck, 49, who recently reinvented as the owner of Ellevate Network, a global women’s-networking organization. Here, her advice on making connections.

Just do it
“Somehow networking is seen as painful, nonessential and related to the word schmoozing. I have a different view. Research has identified networking as the number-one unwritten rule of success; it also shows that one’s next opportunity is more likely to come from one’s extended network than from friends.”

Be patient
“It can take years for relationships to pay off. You don’t plant a seed and try to immediately pull it out of the ground. You let it grow.”

It’s a two-way street
“Never do anything with an ulterior motive. At the same time [the people who helped me jump to 85 Broads] helped me, I was doing things for them. Good things happen to those who give.”